In the recent film "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," a Turkish James Bond figure makes much use of his license to kill, dispatching U.S. soldiers with ease and cool usually associated with 007's effortless slaughtering of gangs of KGB agents. Sinister Israelis are blasted as well, their trade being in the stealing of organs from Iraqi babies, provided to them by an obliging U.S. military when it is not too busy machine-gunning wedding parties. Grotesque as all this might seem, it has been the most popular Turkish movie in years, breaking all box office records within days of release.

By Jon Gorvett

"Award-winning Israeli film finds it tough going in the Arab world. A Palestinian scriptwriter and a theme dealing with identity under occupation in the Golan fail to open doors"

by Sharif Hamadeh

Ramallah, West Bank: "I always say that I live in Israel, but I am a filmmaker who doesn't believe in borders for films," says Eran Riklis. As the director and co-writer of "The Syrian Bride," the poly-lingual feature-length drama which has now won more awards abroad than any previous Israeli film, Riklis's comments seem especially apt.

They are also in keeping with a central theme of the film.

"The Syrian Bride," which has been touring the world and picking up awards at European and Canadian film festivals, tells the story of Mona, a Druze bride, and her family from the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as they prepare for Mona's wedding. Mona's prospective groom, a Syrian soap star, is also her cousin, but the couple have never been able to meet because of the political border - and conflict - that divides them.

PALESTINIAN FILMMAKER Hanna Elias' "The Olive Harvest" garnered prizes in several international film festivals during 2003. In Cairo, it captured the Best Arab Film award for producers Kamran Elahian and Elias and the Special Jury Award for director Elias. In San Francisco, it took second prize, and will represent the Palestinian Authority in the foreign-language category in next year's Oscar competition.

Elias has come a long way from the first time this writer saw him as a young rosy-cheeked student, fresh from his native Jerusalem. The occasion was an assembly in UCLA's cavernous Ackerman Hall, where Elias stood in front of several thousand students and challenged the speaker, Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane, as to why he claimed Elias should be banned from returning to his home city of Jerusalem while Jews the world over are welcome.

Even though Elias' English wasn't that good in 1983, he managed to convince many in the audience that Kahane was a racist.

The same passionate patriotism that made Elias' challenge to the radical rabbi so indelible permeates "The Olive Harvest," a story depicting the Palestinians' attachment to their land.

The film, shot during the November 2000 olive harvest, stars Muhammad Bacri as the father of two daughters, Raeda (Raeda Adon) and Arren (Arren Umari), and portrays their relationship with two brothers from the village, Mazen (Mazen Saade) and Taher (Taher Najeeb).

By Elaine Pasquini

ON AUG. 18, SOME 75 Jews and Arabs gathered at San Francisco's Arab Cultural and Community Center for a presentation by law professor-turned-filmmaker Edward Gaffney. The benefit reception was hosted by Alice Nashashibi to raise funds for Gaffney to complete his film "Holy Land: Common Ground," which features Israelis and Palestinians working together to achieve peace in their common homeland.

"One reason I'm trying to make this film is because I wanted to humanize the face of the Palestinians," explained Gaffney, a law professor at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. "They have been characterized in our media as terrorists and the violent ones. While there are people who do terrible acts, lamentably, they are in both communities. The state terrorism inflicted upon Palestinians is courtesy of American tax dollars through Apache helicopters and F16s dropping one-ton bombs. That's a form of terrorism."

Gaffney recalled his travels in 2002 to Palestine, during which he heard Palestinians saying, "stop the suicide bombings-it's illegal, it's immoral, it's a crime against humanity and it is robbing us of our heart and soul." Emphasizing he was only the "humble bearer of stories from that part of the world," the unpretentious filmmaker noted it was important "to hear Israeli Jews speak about the suffering of Palestinians. Israelis who say 'stop the occupation-it is illegal, immoral and it is corrupting the heart and soul of Israel'."

Documentary Brings Forbidden Images to American Viewers

By Judith Gabriel

Egyptian-American documentary producer Jehane Noujaim, whose documentary "Control Room" broke box office records in its first week of screenings at the prestigious New York Film Forum in June, was fascinated by the contradiction between the popularity of Al Jazeera with the Arab public and how it was denounced by many governments, both Arab and the U.S. She was also curious about the people at Al Jazeera, the journalists who were "taking basically hell from the entire world."

"Over the course of the last year, the station was roundly criticized by the U.S. government, yet I would go home to Egypt and my father would be watching," she told Al Ahram weekly, commenting on her interest in Al Jazeera. "The contradiction between its popularity with the Arab public and how hated it was by many Arab governments was fascinating. "

The 29-year-old filmmaker took aim at how the War on Iraq was depicted on Al Jazeera. As the missiles struck Baghdad on March 19, 2003, and the Western media was being "parachuted" into Baghdad to get a ringside seat for the action, Noujaim took a unique vantage point, watching events unfold from inside Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

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